Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few thousand things to accomplish in the next few weeks!

So … such is life.  Unless I hear from the school that has me waitlisted–and believe me, I would be happy to go to this school, but I don’t think they’re likely to have many people turn them down–I will be in San Diego for another year.  While I am here, I will likely expand the scope of my current program to include a certification on top of my actual degree, and continue to teach & tutor.

While this is a disappointment, in that I failed at my first attempt to PhD, it is not entirely unwelcome–for one thing, I no longer have to move across the country in a few short months, and for another, I actually don’t hate living in San Diego.  (On a side note, I am making a resolution to enjoy the beaches this summer a damn sight more than I have the last two.)

Finally, I will be reapplying to PhD programs for the next year.  I will be busting my ass throughout the fall semester to put together a powerhouse of an application, the kind that cannot be denied.  Because I’m willing to fail at this once and regroup, but if I fail a second time, that’s going to require revisiting my overall goals.

So, there you have it.  Unless I am spontaneously accepted by the school that has me waitlisted, San Diego will get to see some more of me yet.

Link

Wherein John and Patrick discuss Pathfinder, Conventions, and make a metric ton of obscure references.

 Some Stuff Mentioned

The Yellow Dart

Chiron Beta Prime

Tenacious D – Tribute

RPG Superstar Competition Submissions: John’s and Patrick’s

Licensed Creative Commons Attribution Noncommericial.

Aura faint evil; CL 5th

Slot None Price 25,000 gp Weight 1 lb.

The Ritual Blade and Bowl of Zon-Kuthon are always crafted as a linked set, and will function as mundane objects if used separately.  This wondrous item allows a wielder to perform Zon-Kuthon’s transformation on a subject sentient creature that is 1) Living and 2) an unconscious, incapacitated. The wielder uses the knife to draw blood into the bowl, dealing 1d4 points of constitution damage. After, the wielder takes the drawn blood and douses themselves with it.  When the ritual is complete, the wielder will take on the exact appearance (and voice) of the subject sentient creature (although not its stats, memories, personality, spells, or aura) for 2d4 hours.

If the subject creature dies at any time, the ritual is reverted.

The Ritual of Zon-Kuthon’s Transformation can only be performed once a day.  In keeping with Zon-Kuthon’s nature the transformation is excruciating for both parties.

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Disguise Self, creator must be a worshiper of Zon-Kuthon; Cost 12500 gp

The problem with this entry is that I didn’t do any fluff (read: background); I just dove right in to the workings of it.  Ah well.  Next time.

Rearview Gem
Aura faint divination; CL 5th
Slot none; Price 10,000 gp; Weight –
Description
This faceted gem is attached to a metal stud which must be placed in an eyebrow piercing.  Installation of this item requires a successful Craft (piercing) check at DC 15, or Craft (tattoo) at DC 20.  For one week after installation, the wearer gains no benefit and is at a -5 to all concentration and Perception checks.

After the item has been in place for more than one week, it has the following effects: One pair of enemies (wearer’s choice) who are flanking the wearer gain no flanking bonus to their attack rolls.  Other adjacent enemies flank as normal.  Selecting a different pair of enemies is a free action that can only be done on the wearer’s turn.

After the initial week, all concentration checks made while wearing this item are taken at a -2 penalty.  There is no remaining penalty to Perception checks.

Due to the item’s impact on the wearer’s appearance, there may be a situational Diplomacy penalty (GM’s discretion).

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, clairvoyance; Cost 5,000 gp

Yeah, it was pretty much exactly like this…

You’re nervous. You have a carefully graphed snarl of figures you half understand and the big, bearded dude sitting across from you is talking. What the hell are you supposed to do now?

The situation: the ‘you’ that isn’t you had his employer’s little girl kidnapped by a low level gangster/child slaver. A creepy fortune telling lady has brought you together with some strangers and you’re just now meeting one another, trying to figure out how to get in and out of the bad guy’s lair without dying horribly.

‘You’ note that since the hive of villainy is propped up on supports over the river, you can blow up these structural timbers with the Alchemist’s bombs and the building would collapse into the water.

‘And what about the children?’ The others want to know. Well, you could throw down rope. But then some might drown. And that’s when things devolve into a heated debate about what would be an acceptable percentage of orphan murder for ‘you’ to still be considered ‘good’ (which is especially important since you are the priest of a God who isn’t renowned for his pro toddler murder stance).

And it’s that moment, before you even get to roll your first d20 to hit, that you smile.  Because, in some way you don’t exactly understand, you’ve connected to a part of yourself that you didn’t even realize was missing.

The budget conscious, fuel-efficient, crossover!

Vikings vs Native Americans!

We found a Dragon? Dammit  we were looking for a Path!

What you might not know is that I was raised by Christians who believed that the Bible is the literal word of God.  Moreover, my Dad was a pastor at our church and (since I’m a child of the 80s and early 90s) I came of age right around when the whole notion of ‘D&D is the devil’ was near its peak.  As such, I was never got around to rolling a character until I reached adulthood and I had to fudge some things to keep my Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana cartridges from being confiscated.

Unlike a lot of my gaming peers, I don’t have any nostalgia around busting out some graph paper and diving a make believe dungeon. As it stands, most of my capacity for nostalgia has been conquistadored by the Nintendo Corporation: so it’s all ‘new’ to me.

And I’m loving (almost) every moment of it.

Of course, it’s not all good: playing pen and paper role playing games can be an insular hobby dominated by people who seem to compete to see who can most embody the worst basement dweller stereotypes (although, thankfully, I’ve never played with them). Moreover, it’s an recreational hazards that players will, unprompted and at stupefying length, discuss their past campaigns. I’ve yet to encounter anything more in-jokey than four people sitting around talking about what happened in their last game while you’re trying to move on with the current one. That being said…

About the same time we started this site, I started my first Pen and Paper role playing game (Pathfinder – Curse of the Crimson Throne if you’re curious) with Patrick GMing.

Stegen was the first character I ever rolled.  He was the hard drinking  Ulfen (Viking) cleric of Cayden Cayleen -God of Ale, Freedom, Mercenaries, and (according to Stegen’s sermons anyway) being awesome.  Stegen did stuff like choking out a crocodile, drinking some underpaid bad guy guards under the table (of course he ended up under the table with them), and summoning an endless succession of celestial frogs in order to 1) learn how to ride the slippery buggers or 2) get them drunk.

Although, in his defense I would totally get drunk with this guy if I could.

In actuality, Stegen was nothing more than a consensual hallucination shaped by a string of semi-randomized numbers and some scant written description. But he feels ‘realer’ than just about every character I’ve made for a video game,  real in a way that only the best fictional characters (Paul Atredes, Mass Effect’s Shephard, and Snakes on a Plane’s Samuel Jackson) have ever been to me.

No one: not the scriptwriter, the director or the actors remembers a name for this character that isn’t  Samuel Jackson.

Playing pen and paper RPG definitely had a virginal learning curve: it was hard to keep track of all the moving parts, hard to remember what you roll for damage and when you need to make a knowledge planes check and what you’re supposed to do with your hands. But if it’s something that appeals to you (and I always knew it would be my scene) it’s a ton of fun.

Even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.

I loved learning how to build relationships with the other characters, loved when early choices came back in a big way, loved the tactical freedom of using guard dogs as projectile weapons.

Masterwork Weiner Dogs have +2 to hit!

There’s been other characters: Marcion Ablecroft; a prissy, rule obsessed priest of the god of cities and B14[k-[r0w; Amerindian Shadowrunner with a head full of circuitry, a cool million worth of hardware and enough daddy issues to fill a thousand tween livejournals. And anyway, I seem to be GMing (running games) as much as (if not more than) I play them nowadays. Heck, I’m now at the point where I’ve been designing wondrous items and archetypes for fun.

But no matter where gaming takes me, Stegen will always have a special place in my heart… because you never forget your first.

(A lovely and amazing photographer *cough*Lauren from StopGo Photographycough* hastily photoshopped the title image at the behest of her husband.)

Link

Wherein John and Patrick discuss Macro Posting, Video Games, The RPG Superstar Awesomeness Duel, and the Hitler Downfall meme.

 Some Stuff Mentioned

 Ichor Falls

Candle Cove

Vixy and Tony

Hitler Downfall

Hitler, as “Downfall producer” orders a DMCA takedown from Brad Templeton on Vimeo.

Licensed Creative Commons Attribution Noncommericial.

One of my favorite websites -the Cultural Gutter, edited by former John vs Patrick guest Carol- is doing an online indiegogo fundraising campaign to keep paying their authors.  If you have a free minute, be sure to check out their awesome rewards.

Also, can I just say that henceforth Godzilla should always walk around in a party hat whilst baring cake?

For December, Patrick and I are both entering the Paizo 2013 RPG Superstar Competition.

If you’re familiar with the Pathfinder roleplaying system: we’ll be designing a new wondrous item, and then pitching designing other game elements if we proceed through the elimination rounds (archetypes, creatures, encounters, etc).  And if you’re not familiar with Pathfinder, basically we’re going to compete to see who is a bigger Gamer Geek.

A bunch of my indie author peeps have gotten together to release our books as black friday reads! For when you’re waiting in line, and wanna check out a new author for only 99 cents!  If you need something to read -or have been wanting to check out CHEMO- nows your chance.